2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to Visit Colorado

TED

Leymah Gbowee

Den­ver-based Peace Jam Foun­da­tion has announced that one of the recip­i­ents of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Peace, Liber­ian social work­er, Lemah Gbowee, will vis­it Col­orado in November.

The announce­ment post­ed on the orga­ni­za­tion’s web­site stat­ed, “Nobel Peace Prize Win­ner Leymah Gbowee will pre­sent­ing the 2012 Peace Jam Hero Award to Edie Lut­nick and Ken Fell­man. Both of these amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als have been instru­men­tal in advanc­ing peace and sup­port­ing Peace Jam in a vari­ety of capacities.”

Gbowee will deliv­er a keynote address dur­ing the Peace Jam “4^th Annu­al Hero’s Award Lun­cheon” on Novem­ber 13 at the Den­ver Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts.

Leymah Gbowee, received the Nobel Prize in 2011 along­side cur­rent Liber­ian Pres­i­dent Sir­leaf John­son and Yemeni jour­nal­ist, Tawakkol Kar­man,  “for their non-vio­lent strug­gle for the safe­ty of women and for women’s rights to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in peace-build­ing work,” accord­ing to the Nobel Com­mit­tee.

Recent­ly, Gbowee has “dis­avowed” her rela­tion­ship and con­nec­tions to Sir­leaf John­son because of what she calls “lack of progress” in Liberia. That lack of progress is the result of what British news­pa­per The Tele­graph described as wide­spread graft and nepo­tism in the country.

Gbowee places the blame for this lack of progress on the shoul­ders of Pres­i­dent Sir­leaf John­son who has been pres­i­dent of Liberia since 2006.